Conventional ironing boards are used in many household appliances for ironing textiles like cloths, curtains, etc. These ironing boards are usually covered with an ironing board cover that serves as a basis or support pad for the textiles to be ironed. The ironing board cover usually builds a flat, planar and smooth support pad on which the textiles can be comfortably placed during the ironing process.
Modern electric irons are often equipped with pressurized steam generators. These steam irons also require a special adaption of the ironing board or the ironing board cover, respectively. Modern steam irons generate a lot of high pressure steam. When used together with conventional ironing boards, steam condensation occurs during ironing due to the cooling of the steam on or near the ironing board. This steam condensation often leads to a wetting of the ironing board cover, and thereby often to an unwanted water build-up. This water build-up is not only disadvantageous since it wets the textiles to be ironed, and thereby complicates the drying of the textiles, but also since this water build-up may lead to a water dripping from the ironing board.
Especially in the case of powerful and pressurized steam generators condensed water may start to drip from the ironing board and form a water build-up on the floor below the ironing board within just several minutes during ironing. This often results in a hassle for the user, since the user needs to clean and dry the floor after ironing. Floors that are sensitive to water may also be damaged. The longer ironing time, which occurs due to the extended time for drying the textiles in case the board cover is wet, additionally decreases the user friendliness.
However, high pressurized steam irons enable a fast removal of wrinkles Thus, ironing boards and ironing board covers need to be adapted to the above-mentioned situations and to the properties of the electric irons. The board covers need to be especially able to manage the amount of produced steam.
The above mentioned effect of steam condensation and water build-up also occurs when regular steam irons are used, which produce high steam amount with less pressure or even no pressure.
Different technical solutions have been developed in the past years to overcome the above-mentioned problems. Many of these problems have been overcome in an efficient way. Nevertheless, ironing boards and ironing boards cover solutions of the state of the art still have drawbacks.
Some ironing boards known from the prior art provide means of collecting steam condensation by creating pockets in the ironing board. During ironing the users thus do not have the problem of water dripping any more. However, water may still flow out from the pockets and wet the floor when the ironing board is folded and stored after the usage. This solution thus only temporarily overcomes the above-mentioned water condensation problem.
Further ironing boards known from the prior art are equipped with an electrical fan or an electrical heater to actively prevent steam condensation. The electrical fan is adapted to blow away the steam, while the electrical heater is adapted to maintain the high temperature of the ironing board, thus to avoid steam condensation. However, this kind of ironing boards usually results in high consumer prices and in a heavy load of the ironing board which makes it difficult to move around.
Further known ironing boards use heat reflective board covers that are coated with a metallic coating. These ironing boards are based on the idea to deflect the heat and steam from the ironing board in order to minimize the steam condensation on the board. However, this has not shown to be effective. Steam still penetrates through the board cover and comes into contact with the ironing board frame, which is in most cases realized as a metal frame. Steam is cooled down on the metal frame, condenses, and drips again on the floor.
An improved ironing board cover is known from EP 1 002 895 A1. The ironing board cover known thereof makes use of a fabric sheet that is impermeable to steam. The pores of the fabric are almost completely sealed by a coating having a closed-cell structure. In this way, a steam barrier is created. As a result, the passage of steam through the ironing board is prevented. Thus, steam is not able to penetrate the board cover any more, wherein the amount of condensation is reduced significantly to almost zero. On the other hand, this results in a steam deflection, wherein most of the generated steam escapes below the steam iron from its lateral sides and then again to the lateral sides of the ironing board. This also changes the guidance and movement properties of the iron, because a cushion of steam and warm air develops under the iron, and the iron slides on this cushion of steam and warm air, which effect is also referred to as air-cushion, hydrofoil or riding-on-air technique.
Even though this technique is realized on purpose according to EP 1 002 895 A1, it has several major drawbacks. First of all, due to the fact that the iron is “flying” over the ironing board, it is hard to create a stretching on the garment. Thus, the ironing results are sacrificed and the ironing time is longer. Secondly, this technique may also result in a danger or health risk for the user. The deflected steam may cause the user to feel hot and uncomfortable. If the user keeps on ironing on one location for a longer time, e.g. when trying to remove tough wrinkles, his/her hand may feel hot, or even burning of the hand may occur.